Perception Of Humor Research Articles

Nationale Spielarten von Humor (GE)

The paper deals with the perception of humour in different cultures and presents various attempts of humour researchers, cultural anthropologists, psychologists, linguists, writers, communication experts and media scholars at describing and categorizing the specific features of the humour produced and favoured by some nations. A special focus lies on the generally contested German humour. While stereotypes, blanket statements or subjective assessments are clearly unavoidable, they can, however, offer interesting insights in the mentality and traditions of other peoples that are relevant to cross-cultural communication and may enhance the spirit of tolerance towards alterity as well as contribute to the reduction of existing prejudice.

La recepción del humor basado en elementos culturales en la traducción española de la narrativa de Naguib Mahfuz: análisis empírico centrado en las técnicas traslativas

Nuestro objetivo principal en este trabajo es llevar a cabo un análisis empírico de la recepción del humor basado en elementos culturales en la traducción española de la obra de Naguib Mahfuz. Pretendemos medir el grado de percepción de la comicidad en esta traducción en comparación con la versión original y desvelar, al mismo tiempo, cualquier posible relación entre este aspecto y el grado de explicitación de la información relacionada con los culturemas, mediante el uso de ciertas técnicas traslativas. Cuatro cuestionarios constituidos por diez segmentos extraídos de la obra original y sus correspondientes traducciones reales y manipuladas fueron sometidos al juicio de hablantes nativos de ambos idiomas. La tasa de percepción del humor en las traducciones reales no supera el 30%. Los datos también indican que la explicitación de la información es un factor que puede mejorar los resultados, pero su efecto es bastante reducido, puesto que hace que desaparezca del texto la complicidad entre emisor y receptor, que es un elemento esencial para la percepción de la hilaridad.

Don't Joke About Me: Student Identities and Perceptions of Instructor Humor in College Science Courses.

Humor is a popular tool used by instructors to engage students. However, some instructor jokes may be perceived as less funny and more offensive by particular groups of students. Previous studies have shown that student gender impacts student perception of instructor humor; however, to our knowledge no studies have explored whether there are differences in how other identity groups interpret instructor humor. In this study, we surveyed 1,637 students across 25 different college science courses at a research-intensive institution in the Southwest United States. Students evaluated a set of topics that science instructors might joke about in class as to whether they were funny and offensive. Using binary logistic regression, we analyzed whether students of different identities, including race/ethnicity, political affiliation, LGBTQ+ status, religious affiliation, and native language, differentially perceived joke topics to be funny and offensive if told by an instructor in class. We identified that topics which tended to be perceived by students as funny rather than offensive were generally less likely to be perceived as funny to non-native English language speakers compared with native English speakers. We also found that students were more likely to be offended by jokes about their own identity group. This work identifies potentially humorous topics that instructors should avoid because they could be offensive to groups of students. This study also highlights topics that tend to be perceived as funny to most students, which indicates that instructors who joke about such topics may be universally benefitting college science students.

HUMOR AT WORK: BANK EMPLOYEES METAPHORICAL PERCEPTION

Mizahın insanın mutluluğuna ve refahına olumlu etkilerinin olduğu uzun zamandır bilinmektedir. Birçok disiplin tarafından araştırma konusu yapılan mizah, son zamanlarda örgütsel davranışlar alanında çalışan araştırmacıların da dikkatini çekmiş ve iş yerinde mizah çalışma konusu yapılmaya başlanmıştır. Bu çalışma banka çalışanlarının iş yerinde mizah algılarını metaforlar aracılığıyla sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaçla 36 banka çalışanından elde edilen verilerin tümevarımsal içerik analizi sonucunda iş yerinde mizah ile ilgili farklı bakış açıları belirlenmiştir. Buna göre, sağlık çağrışımı yapan ilaç ve doktor metaforlarının sıklıkla kullanıldığı, mizahın iş yerinde iyileştirici, tedavi edici gücü olan bir örgütsel unsur olarak algılandığı görülmüştür. Bunun yanısıra, yine sıklıkla ifade edilen ve doğa çağrışımı yapan, güneş, hayat, gökkuşağı gibi metaforlar ve besin çağrışımı yapan, tuz, tatlı, et gibi metaforlar, iş yerinde mizahın örgüt üyesinin yaşamını sürdürebilmesi için zorunlu bir ihtiyaç olarak algılandığını göstermiştir. Üretilen bu metaforlar için sunulan gerekçeler ve metaforların mantıksal dayanakları ise mizah kuramları kapsamında değerlendirilerek mizahın çoğunlukla Rahatlama kuramı bağlamında algılandığı, bunun yanısıra Uyumsuzluk kuramını çağrıştıran dayanakların da olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Çalışma grubundan elde edilen veriler içinde Üstünlük kuramını ifade eden metafor gerekçesi ve dayanağı betimlenmemiştir.

Humor perception in schizophrenia appears to be related to disorganization syndrome

Perception of humor seems to be often disturbed in schizophrenia, yet current literature is limited and ambiguous on its relationship to psychopathology. A sample of 40 schizophrenia-diagnosed subjects provided humor comprehension and funniness ratings for 60 cartoons and 60 stories with funny, neutral and absurd punchlines. Disorganization syndrome was found to associate with deficits in humor comprehension and experienced funniness in non-humorous stimuli after controlling for cognitive performance, age, sex and medication. The findings are discussed in relation to previous studies on the topic.

Humor in the elderly with dementia: Development and initial validation of a behavioral observation system

Interventions with Clinic Clowns trained for performing in nursing homes have been explored in several field studies. Until now, however, it has not been sufficiently investigated to which extent and in which ways elderly with dementia (EWD) respond to and engage in humorous interactions. An exploratory study with 17 German dementia care unit residents aimed at narrowing this gap. To assess understanding, appreciation and authorship as well as contextual information we have constructed a behavioral observation and annotation system for humor interaction with the elderly with dementia (ANHIDE) The system was tested for inter-coder agreement and reached kappa values qualified as substantial for humor categories (κ = .685), humor response (κ = .725) and musical contributions (κ = .752). In 9 hours of video recorded interaction, participants contributed almost a third of the annotated humor events with verbal humor being their most frequent way of expression. Benign humor styles prevailed (85%) and aggressive humor was rare (2%). Whenever participants could be addressed successfully, they responded overly positive (89%). Malign humor styles were – if not ignored – answered with disapproval or the attempt to reconcile. Best practice recommendations for addressing and involving the residents with dementia are well-structured contributions and combined use of various stylistic means. Limitations, as well as suggestions for further in-depth research, are discussed, e.g., individual differences in humor response, strategies to encourage participants’ active contribution or fostering humor as a behavioral competence. Overall, this contribution is the first to provide a behavioral observation system for a detailed annotation of humor interactions regarding the elderly with dementia (ANHIDE). We demonstrate preliminary evidence for competencies in humor perception and production in the target group.

Nature and Perception of Sexist Humor at Great Zimbabwe University

For the majority of women, university represents a time of hopefulness and opportunities such that gendered incidences questioning their academic merit poses a serious setback. Sexist humor is one such incident which communicates a message that females are irrelevant and insignificant. This article discusses the nature and perceptions of sexist humor on University campuses. The views on how students on campus perceive sexist humor are crucial for understanding students’ response and offer a clear understanding of what justifies and normalizes sexist humor. The paper analyzes how the use of language can be connected to sexism and violence. Using a mixed methodology for data collection at Great Zimbabwe University, the paper attempts to link language, sexual violence, misogyny, and sexism as well as chronicle the overall pattern of exclusion and marginalization of women in higher education settings. The findings of the paper present evidence that the institutional and intellectual cultures of educational institutions are permeated with sexual and gender dynamics that have become embedded and naturalized in popular thought. Normalization of verbal harassment contributes to muting victimized women, thus perpetuating a culture in which violence against women becomes part of the social milieu. Thus, this study concludes that while one may consider higher education institutions in Africa as safer spaces for women, these are highly contested terrains as misogyny through sexist humor, among other hindrances, has created an obstacle for women’s equal participation in higher education.

Investigating satirical discourse processing and comprehension: the role of cognitive, demographic, and pragmatic features

abstractSatire is a subtle type of figurative discourse and is still relatively under-studied from the perspective of figurative language researchers. The purpose of this study is to investigate cognitive, demographic, and pragmatic factors previously suggested to influence satire processing and comprehension but which have yet to be studied using behavioral methods. Specifically, this study examines Need for Cognition (NFC; the desire to engage in cognitively difficult tasks), general knowledge, demographic measures such as language background, and affective perceptions of humor, sincerity, and positivity. Sixty-one participants (32 non-native English speakers) read satirical and non-satirical news reports taken from The Onion and Science Daily, respectively, both published in the United States. Perceptions of sincerity, humor, and positivity, reading times, and written interpretations of the intended meaning for each text were recorded. Results from statistical analyses suggested NFC significantly influenced satirical text reading times. Moreover, language background and perceptions of sincerity significantly influenced satire comprehension. These results highlight an interplay between individual differences during satire processing and comprehension, and work to validate some, but not all, theoretical predictions for satire processing and comprehension.

Nonverbal Learning Disability in Relation to the Semantics and Pragmatics of Humor

The purpose of this research is to identify difficulties in understanding humor caused by deficits in language in relation to Learning Difficulties (LD) such as Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities (NVLD) with respect to the fields of semantics and pragmatics. The first phase of the paper assesses social development and perception of humor with regards to social, cognitive, and linguistic skills. The second phase pinpoints patterns of humor as well as the perception of humor by individuals with NVLD. The final phase involves surveying the fields of semantics and pragmatics of humor by identifying patterns and deficits, which are later used to identify solutions and suggestions. Seemingly, the ability to comprehend, assess, or develop humor is tied to social and cognitive skills, and any deficits in learning may hinder the understanding of humor. The studies examined in this paper illustrate that learners with NVLD find it difficult to comprehend or assess jokes that are phonological in nature. However, these learners can understand lexical and congruity jokes. Provided the context and linguistics patterns, learners with NVLD can perceive jokes and derive meaning through context. Hence, in order to reduce the effects of NVLD, learners should be provided with language awareness in order to overcome their learning difficulties. Moreover, adjustment tools can be taken into consideration, such as providing individuals with safe learning environments and developing curriculums that fit their needs. Since individuals with NVLD do not comprehend humor on the phonological level, they can gradually learn how to overcome this difficulty by probing the field of phonology. Also, learners with NVLD can also master lexicology and cognitive congruity in order to understand better the mechanics of humor and language.

Instructor Humor as a Moderator of Instructors’ Inappropriate Conversations and Instructional Dissent

This study (N = 326) was conducted to examine the associations among instructor humor, inappropriate conversations, and instructional dissent. First, results showed students are more likely to employ rhetorical dissent when they perceive their instructors as humorous in the classroom. Second, using expectancy violations theory as a guide, results also indicated that students’ perceptions of instructor-relevant humor moderated the relationships between enactment of inappropriate conversations and students’ expressive and vengeful dissent. These findings support the importance of employing relevant humor in course instruction, especially when instructors engage in inappropriate conversations in the college classroom.

Cultural Differences in Humor Perception, Usage, and Implications.

Humor is a universal phenomenon but is also culturally tinted. In this article, we reviewed the existing research that investigates how culture impacts individuals’ humor perception and usage as well as humor’s implications for psychological well-being. Previous research has substantiated evidence that Easterners do not hold as positive an attitude toward humor as their Western counterparts do. This perception makes Easterners less likely to use humor as a coping strategy in comparison with Westerners. Despite this difference, Westerners and Easterners have similar patterns in the relationship between their humor and psychological well-being index, though the strength of the relationship varies across cultures. Implications and potential future research avenues discussed.

Savage or satire: Individual differences in perceptions of disparaging and subversive racial humor

Subversive racial humor intends to confront and challenge racist beliefs to subvert traditional status hierarchies. However, because of its racial content, such humor can be misconstrued as disparaging. To understand why, we examined how individual differences relate to perceptions of disparaging and subversive racial humor. In three studies (Ns = 204, 134, and 200), college students and MTurk workers completed established measures of individual differences in tendencies to perceive racial prejudice (Studies 1–3), motivations to suppress racial prejudice (Study 3), and modern racism (Study 3), and responded to examples of disparaging or subversive racial humor. General tendencies to perceive racial prejudice were associated with more negative reactions to disparaging humor (e.g., perceiving it as less funny and more racist) and more positive reactions to subversive humor (e.g., perceiving it as more funny and more antiracist). Individual differences in motivations to suppress racial prejudice showed similar patterns, and modern racism showed opposite patterns. In general, our findings suggest that although subversive racial humor can be misconstrued, believing racial prejudice is pervasive and problematic is associated with a greater understanding and appreciation of subversive racial humor, an increasingly prevalent social phenomenon that requires further empirical attention.

Harmony and Distress: Humor, Culture, and Psychological Well-Being in South Korean Organizations.

Humor is a contextual phenomenon that exists in all societies, although the impact of humor may differ across different cultures. The data for this research was collected using an ethnographic-based approach, incorporating participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Based in three different South Korean organizations, this research offered the opportunity to interact in depth with workers of varying ages, genders, hierarchical levels, and organizational roles. Humor styles incorporate both light and dark forms of humor that may be affiliative and self-enhancing or aggressive and detrimental or may contain elements from both styles simultaneously Observations were complimented by 46 in-depth interviews and ad hoc follow-up discussions. This paper adopts a Confucian perspective to understand the perception and use of workplace humor in these South Korean organizations. Confucian philosophy emphasizes the value of formality within society in order to maintain respectful relationships between individuals. We suggest that humor is used in these South Korean workplaces to support traditional Confucian values of harmony and hierarchy, and the changing cultural values in these workplaces influence humor perceptions in complex ways. The Confucian value of harmony maintained through the idea of hierarchy creates pressure for organizational members, to accept and cope with contentious humor in the workplace. In particular, the clash between the need to maintain harmonious relationships in the workplace (through obedience toward superiors) and the desire to reject some types of humor highlights issues for younger organizational members. Internal conflict creates distress for younger employees who may hold more Westernized values and this affects their emotional, psychological well-being. This study presents a cross-cultural perspective to organizational humor, and suggests that humor may not always be a positive experience for organizational members, but instead may create psychological distress in some employees.

Laughing Matters: ELLs’ Comprehension and Perceptions of Humor

Humor is probably one of the few features applicable to virtually all people in the world, but the perception and appreciation of humor can be circumstantial and culture-dependent. Although the potential role of humor in language classrooms has been the topic of research over the last years, limited research has been conducted on cross-cultural variability in humor perception and appreciation. The current study, seeking to address this gap, was conducted with a multicultural group of English language learners (ELLs). One hundred and six ELLs consisting of three main groups (i.e., Turkish, Asian and European) took part in this study. After completing a language background questionnaire, participants rated 6 humorous scenarios and then completed a 25-item humor perception questionnaire. Further, participants answered three open-ended questions at the end of the questionnaire. The results indicated that learners generally assigned more positive scores to universal jokes when compared to linguistic and cultural jokes. As for the perception of humor use in English classrooms, Asian group held slightly less positive attitudes towards the use of humor whereas Turkish group was the one most interested in the employment of humor. In addition, the results indicated that humor was linked to several benefits such as lowering affective barriers to English language learning, increasing ELLs’ attentiveness in the classroom and improving teacher-student rapport.

Teacher humor: longitudinal effects on students’ emotions

Characteristics of teaching are associated with the emotions students experience in the classroom; however, empirical evidence regarding longitudinal effects is scarce. The present study investigated changes in positive and negative achievement emotions (enjoyment, boredom, and anger) vis-a-vis different teacher humor types (course-related, course-unrelated, self-disparaging, and aggressive), using the instructional humor processing theory and control-value theory of achievement emotions as a theoretical foundation. A total of 668 German upper track secondary school students from 41 classrooms with a mean age of 12.7 years (SD = 1.76) reported their perceptions of teacher humor and their experienced achievement emotions by completing online questionnaires (retest interval 6 months). Using the corresponding levels of emotions at the first measurement point as control values, results from multilevel analyses indicate that course-related humor weakens both decreases in enjoyment and increases in boredom and anger. Consistent with the hypotheses, aggressive humor leads to less enjoyment and more boredom and anger. Directions for future research are discussed and suggestions on how to best relate humor to course content are made.

Teacher-Student Perception of Humour, Playfulness and Creativity on Student Learning Outcome in Ibadan, Nigeria

Teacher-Student Perception of Humour, Playfulness and Creativity on Student Learning Outcome in Ibadan, Nigeria

Laugh and Learn: Evaluating from Students’ Perspective of Humor Used in English Class

Laughter is an easily reachable way that can be used to erase barriers of communication for educational purposes. The purpose of this paper is to seek out students’ perception of humor added in teaching English and how that humor influenced students’ engagement in English classroom activity. This study employs research instrument of questionnaire and observation concepts through qualitative design. There are 78 students of multi-background: gender, level of intelligence and social background as research participants. These backgroundsareintended to obtain objective perception of the students. The findings revealed that the majority of students believed the teacher’s humor could prevent them from feeling stress of learning English, develop a better relationship between teacher and students, help them remember and understand the lesson, encourage them to be more active in the classroom and ease them in learning English. However there are some obstacles to overcome during humor application that apparently the English teachers need to build a good relationship and mutual trust with students and understand students’ interests, likes and dislikes prior to applying humor, so that the humor would be more likely to be welcomed and it would not cause emotional and psychological impact such as bullying and etc for the students.

Investigating the potential of humour in EFL classrooms: An attitudinal study

Studies on humour have indicated that humour has a lot to offer to both language teachers and learners. Creating a positive classroom environment and lowering affective barriers to language learning are among the several effects of humour. However, the appreciation of humour can be culture-specific and context-dependent. For example, greater values may lie in the employment of humour in English as a foreign language (EFL) settings such as Turkey where the communicative-oriented teaching methods are still in their infancy stage. The current study, therefore, examined the potentials of humour from Turkish EFL learners’ perspective to elicit their opinions regarding the importance and potent roles of humour in EFL classrooms. In this attitudinal study, a mixed-methods design was used. A comprehensive humour perception questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were employed. Two hundred and fifty college EFL students completed the humour survey and eight of them participated in the follow-up interviews. The results indicated that Turkish college-level EFL students have largely positive attitudes towards using humour in English classrooms. Additionally, students considered humour as an effective pedagogical tool that can increase their attentiveness, attention span, confidence in English classrooms, and teacher-student solidarity, as well.

Humor and Satire on Contemporary Television: Animation and the American Joke

Humor and Satire on Contemporary Television: Animation and the American Joke

How do astrophysicists organize a party? Their wives planet: Gender differences in student perceptions of instructor humor in college science courses

Instructor's use of humor in college classrooms is generally viewed positively by students and has been correlated with positive student learning, motivation, perceptions of instructor immediacy, and classroom environment. However, the majority of studies on instructor humor used in college classrooms have explored student perception of funny humor and not of unfunny or offensive humor. Female students, who are more likely to report feeling unwelcome in college science courses, may be particularly affected by instructor use of unfunny or offensive humor. However, few studies have explored how male and female students perceive instructor humor and more specifically, whether male and female students perceive different subjects as offensive. Further, no humor study has been conducted in the context of college science courses.This study was conducted as a course‐based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in biology education with 12 undergraduate and 4 graduate students. Students in the CURE engaged in the process of selecting a research question, iteratively developing a survey tool, collecting data, and analyzing data. We surveyed 1637 undergraduate students across 25 different college science courses at one institution and found that 97% of students appreciate when instructors use humor in college science classes. Using a combination of grounded theory and content analysis, we identified 12 distinct reasons for why students appreciate instructor use of humor in science classes, including that it enhances student learning, makes students more excited to attend class, and makes the instructor more approachable. We found that instructor use of funny humor positively impacted student sense‐of‐belonging to the science classroom, instructor relatability, and student attention to course content. We also found that while instructor use of unfunny humor appeared to neither have a positive nor a negative effect on students, instructor use of offensive humor negatively impacted student sense‐of‐belonging to the science classroom and instructor relatability. There was no difference in the extent to which instructor use of humor positively or negatively affected male and female students. Lastly, we identified a suite of subjects that students broadly perceive as funny, yet less than 5% of students perceive as offensive. We also identified a suite of subjects that some students perceive as funny, yet more than 50% of students perceive as offensive. Specifically, female students were more likely to be offended by humor used by instructors. We hope that these findings will aid in the development of more inclusive classrooms by encouraging instructors to use humor that is most likely to benefit all students.Support or Funding InformationNoneThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.